Play-by-Play: Of International Spectacles and National Identities

Though there is much to look forward to in the coming months, August was a relatively slow one for the geopolitics of sports. My colleague Thomas Hunt commented on the month's biggest news: the International Olympic Committee's granting of the 2024 and 2028 Olympic Games to Paris and Los Angeles, respectively. While the Olympics grabbed the headlines, other events caught our attention -- moments that may not be massively significant on the global scale, but that reflect many of the themes we have encountered in the five months since this column launched. In this edition of Play-by-Play, we look back at August while also looking forward to our "season" ahead....